Qi Dai, M.D., Ph.D.

Contact Information:

Research Specialty

1) Personalized prevention of cancer and other chronic diseases
2) Molecular epidemiologic studies of nutritional factors and other biomarkers, such as magnesium, calcium, polyphenols (e.g. tea polyphenols, isoflavones, lignans) and oxidative stress in the etiology or pathogenesis of chronic diseases, particularly cancer and dementia.

Research Description

Dr. Qi Dai has over 20 years of experience in etiologic research of cancer and other chronic diseases, including dementia. Dr. Daiâ€™s research programs focuses on evaluating gene-environment interactions in the etiology of chronic diseases and develop strategies for the personalized prevention of these diseases. Dr. Dai obtained his first R01 grant as PI in 2004 to investigate the effect of oxidative stress, antioxidants, polymorphisms of genes in detoxifying reactive oxygen species, and their interactions in the development of breast cancer. Over the years, Dr. Dai has expanded the research theme into the research area of Alzheimerâ€™s disease.

Over the past four years Dr. Dai has been investigating a novel hypothesis regarding the interaction of magnesium and calcium and polymorphisms in magnesium and calcium re(absorption) genes in the risk of colorectal adenomas and other chronic diseases. Based on the promising finding, Dr. Dai and his team are working on three two R01 grants, a grant from the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR), and two CTSA grants to further investigate the effect of magnesium and calcium in relation to colorectal adenoma and prostate cancer over the past two years.

The following are the ongoing research projects and those completed over the past three years.

The objectives of this study are to study the dietary cancer-inhibitory factors in a cohort of 67,500 men and to establish biospecimen repository for future genetic and molecular epidemiological study of cancers